Via a guest post at the Good Mother Project (We Left Everything but My Broken Body Behind), Storiteller describes one of the most difficult things she’s ever faced – having a miscarriage at 10 weeks of pregnancy. (TW: Pregnancy loss, miscarriage).

In the series Reflections on the New Year, she uses 2015 as a jumping off point to understand how to approach 2016.

In Looking Backwards to 2015, she contemplates what happened in the last year and how her family came out the other side. (TW: Pregnancy loss, miscarriage, pregnancy complications).

In Seasons of Life, she draws comfort and wisdom from Supergirl’s Cat Grant, a therapy session, and Anne Lamott when considering how to set goals.

In Dreaming and Scheming, she lays out what her goals are – including simplifying – and how she’s already tackling them.

I continued my Horse and His Boy rewrite until it reached the end of chapter 4, thus it was mostly concerned with Shasta in Susan’s chambers.

That part of canon has Edmund describe Rabadash as “this dark faced lover of yours” before mentioning his name. I ignored the racial element and the connotations of “this … of yours” and just made a short piece making fun of describing someone as “Your [attribute] lover“.

I got a new installment of Being more than a Simulacrum done. In the new chapter the online gaming session that Place was using (with Joss) to keep in touch with friends in far flung places is concluded and Place gets the last of the answers left the lair to find.

I did an image post regarding the new tiny Rubik’s cubes. Short version, the ones from the 80s were 19mm cubed, the new ones are 21mm cubed.

In two posts (monthly fundraising post, how I’m doing) I tried to communicate the strange situation of having the big long term problems as clear as they’ve ever been because there’s no immediate looming catastrophe to distract from them.

Let us know, please, if there are errors in the post. Or if you don’t want to be included. Or if there’s someone who you think should be included, which includes you. We can use more content. Or if griffins are demonstrating the Harlem Shake right before the Hamilton ticket raffle. Or for any other reason, really.

Last chapter, the vaccination process began, with the order set by the dragonriders and Healers to heal themselves, and then perhaps the Lords Holder as needed. The rest of the chapter was devoted to giving us a glimpse inside Ruatha and showing how it would serve excellently for the set for a season of a zombie show, or any other post-apocalyptic wasteland.

This chapter opens with a fainting dragonrider – Sh’gall, the Weyrleader, has passed out giving blood to have serum made, resulting in the Healer, Jallora, quipping that it tends to be the big strong guys that faint and that are the worst patients. There’s a running gag of storytelling and media that this is the case, because the juxtaposition is great for comedy, and because it occasionally has a basis in reality – ask many of those who run school-based blood drives and those who see lots of people donating, and they will have stories of big burly men who have taken a look at the needle and passed out cold. (And of those barely five feet tall and flirting with the minimum weight requirements who don’t take no for an answer and want to watch the needle go in.) Jallora collects her liter, compliments Moreta’s job on the wing repair Moreta did before falling ill, and gives Sh’gall a gentle ribbing about his fainting.

Also mentioned:

The journeywoman had interrupted an interview between Moreta and Sh’gall in which he had been determined to find fault with every provision made in the Weyr since the onset of the illness. He utterly discounted the fact that Moreta had not made any of the decisions or that she herself had just recovered.

And Sh’gall continues to be in the great tradition of Weyrleaders that prefer their partners intimidated, abused, and always to blame for anything that isn’t perfect in the way they believe it should be. Sadly, this makes them perfectly normal in our world, too.

Like most people with an overinflated ego and an overinvestment in toxic and performative masculinity, Sh’gall is pouting about how he got blood taken, how Leri took over and didn’t listen to his preferences, that the Masterhealer wasn’t there to personally vaccinate them, that there’s a wingsecond leading a Threadfighting excursion (oh, the horror!), and that, well, he’s still sick with the world so very, very out of whack, and so he can’t do anything to fix it. There could be some sort of unapproved activity going on, or someone might not be showing Sh’gall the correct amount of respect he believes his position demands.

We note that the narrative has been doing a much better job of dryly pointing out to us, often from Moreta’s point of view, that Sh’gall is not Weyrleader because of his abilities to actually lead, save perhaps the ability to lead fighting dragons against Thread.

It seems apt to point out at this moment that dragons mating is no basis for a system of government. Someone distributing swords from water might work better than this.

Moreta spares Sh’gall a charitable thought about his tantrums being about not being able to deal with the pandemic before going to see Leri, who is amused at Sh’gall, and has no intention of letting Moreta curtail her flying with the queen wing, now that she finally has an excuse to do so. As they discuss medicine and suppliers, Moreta has a wave of grief in relation to the new reality of her family’s destruction, and then K’lon arrives.

Of note, although not related to the medicine discussion:

“I sometimes think I have more than two ears and one head.”I don’t have ears, Orlith remarked.

Um, what? Dragons vocalize in addition to their telepathic abilities, so presumably they have an organ developed to process audio and make sense of it. Which, to humans, would be an ear.

It’s possible, though, that this is a miscommunication – if Moreta visualized a picture of a human pair of heads with extra ears when she quipped, Orlith could be right – she doesn’t have human ears. Still, it’s a very odd remark for a dragon to be making.

K’lon’s arrival comes with news of medicine, but quickly devolves into his personal life as Leri picks up on something that takes Moreta a couple goes-round to figure out:

“Done a lot of sunning with A’murry, haven’t you, K’lon?” Leri asked.
Moreta shot her a quick look for her voice was suspiciously coy.
“When I’ve had the time.” K’lon stammered slightly, fussing nervously with the pack.
“You mean”–Moreta had at last reached Leri’s conclusion–“you’ve taken time to be with A’murry!”
“When I think of how hard I’ve worked-” Rogeth bugled outside the Weyr.
“No one is faulting you, K’lon,” Leri said quickly. Holth crooned reassurance, her eyes whirling bluely. “But, my dear boy, you’ve been taking a dreadful risk timing it. You could meet yourself coming and going-”
“But I haven’t. I’ve been very careful!” K’lon’s tone was defiant and fearful.

Okay, so that theory I had where the Sixth Pass hasn’t discovered time travel so that they can’t just warp back and pull a 12 Monkeys scenario to avoid the plague in the first place? It’s about to get completely destroyed, isn’t it?

So, alternate theories:

Fixed points, in the vein of Doctor Who, exist. Messing with them brings out the Clock Roaches in such a way that all attempts at avoiding this tragedy result in timeline destruction or worse disasters.

No warp-capable pictures exist of the necessary time coordinates or something close to it, even after querying the collective fire-lizard memory many Passes later to see if there was one close enough by to have observed the action.

The aftermath of the plague benefits the dragonriders to such a degree that they are willing to sacrifice their own in history to bring about their superior future.

Make your own theories in the comments!

Admittedly, this is what Firedrake and others have mentioned before – if you introduce time travel into a story, the story becomes about time travel. It seems like there’s a lot that could have been prevented by time travel. Even original disasters like the volcanic eruption that forced the Ancients away seems like it could be fixed or mitigated through the judicious use of dragonriders. And we have yet to see a particularly good reason as to why dragonriders don’t interfere in the timeline more.

“Just how many hours have you been putting into your days?” Leri spoke with great understanding and compassion, even a hint of amusement.
“I don’t know. I never counted hours!” K’lon jerked his chin up, rebellious. “I had to, you know. To get everything done and still make time to be with A’murry. I had promised him that I’d be in Igen every afternoon no matter how busy I was. I had to keep that promise. And I felt compelled to render Master Capiam the assistance he had to have-”
“Believe us, K’lon,” Moreta said when he turned to her in appeal, “we are profoundly grateful to you for your courage and dedication over the past week. But timing is a tricky business.”
“And something our Weyrlingmaster certainly never mentioned,” K’lon replied with an edge to his voice.
“That information is restricted to bronze and queen dragons, K’lon. I presume you discovered it by chance.”
“Yes, rather.” K’lon’s expression mirrored the surprise he must have had. “I was late, I knew A’murry would be worried. I thought of him, waiting for me, anxious, when I didn’t appear on time, and the next thing I knew, I had!”

This doesn’t exactly clear up how the time travel works, although it is consistent with how Lessa discovered everything. It also suggests that there is some physical tell that is apparent to anyone who knows what to look for (although it’s also been suggested in the comments in the last book that this information may be communicated by dragon somehow) when it comes to timing it.

Also, the information is restricted to bronzes and queens only?

Cocowhat by depizan

I can see the Weyrlingmaster not mentioning it, because plenty of young people would use that power in all sorts of dangerous ways, like shaving things too closely and meeting themselves (although Lessa technically saw herself when she did the warp, but perhaps there’s a bit where if you get too close to yourself, your existence collapses as the timeline writes you out to preserve itself from the paradox. Best to hope that you’re not someone critical to the function of history, then.

Since K’lon is, and with the hanging threat of one mistake being fatal for him, Leri forbids K’lon from continuing to time it, using Holth’s power as a queen to ensure compliance, and also forbids him from revealing what he has learned about time travel, while also trying to reassure him that he will be scheduled in to see A’murry on a regular basis.

That said, since this information is clearly regulated, there has to be a method for containing the occasional discovery, but also there really need to be rules about the responsible use of time travel. Anyone who discovers the secret will use it, and if they are careful about not exhibiting obvious signs of timing it, it won’t be as easy to detect them, meaning they could cause great disasters on the timeline. Maybe a dragonrider-specific Teaching Song that’s cryptic enough not to give away the secret, but that of one should discover what gives, that will provide an immediate set of rules and behaviors to observe so as to minimize the potential damage?

As it turns out, the obvious signs of timing it in this case is bleached hair and an obvious tan from the additional sun. Back in Dragonquest, I believe that this was also the sign of being able to tell apart which Brown Rider Rapist was from the current timeline and which one was from the past at Southern. Maybe N’ton saw the same things with Jaxom. Considering all of the characters are generally from the cooler north, the presence of an unexpected tan would be a likely giveaway.

The next active element starts, right after Moreta is amused that her dragon is as indifferent to Sh’gall as she is, when Leri returns from Fall to send Moreta out on Holth to fix a queen dragon’s wing that’s been hurt by Thread. (The rider’s leg is also injured, but Leri assures us that Falga will be fine.) Cruising in, Moreta notices the damage is more extensive than relayed and calls on the associated dragons to hold the thrashing queen still so that the repairs can take place. Which includes the two Healers that have finished with Falga and want to help.

And so, once again, we have Moreta fixing a wing – there’s a small nod to the fact that this has happened before in this story, and this fixing moves at an accelerated narrative pace, with the Healers alternating between looking on in awe at how reconstruction works and helping out with the stitching and other needs. As soon as the work is done, Holth is summoning Moreta back to Fort Hold on extreme urgency.

We don’t find out why until we get back to there, but if there’s a draconic equivalent to “Honey. My water just broke,” then this is it. Orlith really needs to get to the Hatching Ground. And fade out, end of chapter. We get no insight into the process of how dragons actually lay eggs and what the associated emotions and other feelings and sensations are. Considering how much we’ve seen and read about the process of sex, and we’ve seen what happens when the eggs hatch and are ready for Impression, surely by now we could get the other part of the process.

We won’t, of course, because birth is one of those processes that makes all the people who are tuned in for the sexytimes leave, and because birth is generally a messy, smelly, and dirty process, even with hospitals and other things.

Those of you who also frequent Ana Mardoll’s Ramblings will find this somewhat familiar. Here, as there, it was requested that there be a regular post to talk about writing projects (and other artwork-creation). Thus this post exists.

What are you working on? How are you feeling about it? What thoughts and/or snippets would you like to share? How does your activism work into your art? What tropes are you hoping to employ and/or avoid? Are there any questions you’d like to ask or frustrations you’d like to vent? Writing workshop below!

For hardware reasons that are all my fault (sorry) we won’t have a “This Week in the Slacktiverse” post this week, so next week week (the coming weekend) will be “These two Weeks…”

As a reminder, here are the categories for submissions:

The Blogaround

Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website since they last submitted to a weekend post is invited, enticed, and cajoled to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.

Remember, this is since you last submitted to a weekend post, not since the last weekend post. For example, if the last time you submitted was a month ago, everything you wrote since then is fair game.

In Case You Missed This

Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers. These should be sent, as you might expect, to the group email.

Things You Can Do

Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email.

Some games (e.g. football/soccer) rely primarily on straightforward rules and the laws of physics to run. And then much more complicated rules to prevent people from exploiting loopholes, deal with the fact that the laws of physics don’t prevent accidental rule breaking or intentional cheating, and so forth.

Other games, chess, D&D, whatever a really famous video game is, create their universe and in so doing provide their own laws of physics.

Both types of games have mechanics, but they’re more recognizable in the latter because you can’t respond to “Why why can’t a bishop move like a rook in chess?” the same way you respond to “Why can’t the players fly in football/soccer?” (Because gravity and the players can’t fly.)

Of course, why is a 1-0 victory in soccer the same as a 10-0 victory and a 10-9 victory has no such obvious answer, and so that’s much clearer as a game mechanic than “The players can’t leave the ground except by jumping, and human anatomy + earth gravity will limit how much they can be off the ground,” even though both apply.

In a video game everything has to be programmed in. If you can jump it isn’t like in football/soccer; someone had to code that. There are a lot of games were they didn’t. Even something as simple as jumping is a game mechanic. So is something as complex as being able to use social engineering to bluff your way into a place you’re not supposed to be instead of having a shoot out.

What game mechanics do you like? Dislike? What are game mechanics you think need to be used more or less. What are game mechanics you’ve never seen but would like to?

–

[As a reminder, open thread prompts are meant to inspire conversation, not stifle it. Have no fear of going off topic for there is no off topic here.]

Let us know, please, if there are errors in the post. Or if you don’t want to be included. Or if there’s someone who you think should be included, which includes you. We can use more content. Or if basilisk are doing the Whip-Nene to Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off. Or for any other reason, really.